Silence - an artform

Gordon

hehe, I like this story - not sure if it is true but I read it in the newspaper..(ahem).... Taken from the Irish Times 3rd Oct "The Ticket" section. I will paraphrase this as it is a long article, I'll try and give the gist of what happened...

"John Cage, perhaps the most influential and ground breaking composer of the last century, was the founding figure of 'indeterminism'. Whether creating a new atonal system, experimenting with musique concréte or messing around with 'variable speed phonographs', Cage irrevocably changed the rules of musical composition.

Sadly, and blame the 'culture' for this, he is best remembered (outside those who understood what he was on about) for his 4,33 composition - more commonly known as Silence. A 'notorious' work, back in 1952, Silence had the performer sitting at his/her instrument but playing nothing. There never was any 'silence': any amount of ambient noise, usually from members of the audience, could be heard during the 4 minutes and 33 seconds."

[Cage discovered that 'silence', defined as a total absence of sound, did not exist. We cannot make a silence.]

[Enter a man called 'Mike Batt', once deemed 'the most annoyingly irritating person in music ever' he is best known for making the music to '[b]The Wombles[/b]' in the '70s. He went on to compose music for the British Conservative party's election campaigns... hehe.]

"Now Batt seems to be the "premier impresario of crossover classical music. Vannessa Mae, Bond and any other bit of totty who's passed grade II music exams are all in the Batt stable. His latest marketing pitch is another classical crossover outfit called 'The Planets'. Their début album, Classical Graffitti, includes a 'song' credited to Batt/Cage called A one minute silence - which is just that."

[so basically what happened then was that the John Cage Trust accused him of plagiarism and took him to court for putting Cage's and his own name to this piece! Batt agreed to an out of court settlement for a 6 figure sum but not before trying to dispute plagiarism...]

"Before the settlement, Batt tried to prove that his silent track differed from Cage's by staging a performance of his A one minute silence back to back with a performance of 4,33, which was 'played' by a clarinettist. [he lost. Unfortunately he is planning on releasing his A One Minute Silence as a single!!! And even more madder than that - he has now registered hundreds of other silent compositions!]

" 'I couldn't get four minutes and 33 seconds, obviously,' he says, 'But I got everything else, including 4 minutes and 32 seconds and 4 minutes and 34 seconds. If there's ever a Cage performance where they come in a second shorter or longer, then it's mine.' "

lol, I never thought that silence could not only be sold, but could be plagiarised and fought over in the law courts! It's like being a chef and bringing out a plate with nothing on it or being a prostitute and not touch the body. I guess that's a sign 'O the times eh. (please excuse my formatting in this thread)

DadaKopf

Yeah, the verdict for that case has been a long time coming. I never knew anything about the guy who was being sued, though. Of course he should have been sued, but not because he used silence but because he used Cage's name and used his concept - which passes as intellectual property.

This whole thing isn't unlike Yves Klein who patented a colour International Klein Blue in, I think, the 1940s. You wonder how anyone could own a colour, but this was his point.

If Batt is threatening to release an album of silence, then he deserves to be castrated. Cage's piece was groundbreaking in its day, Batt is the Timmy Mallet of classical music.

Gordon

IKB 79. It may be copyrighted also to do with the fact that it wasn't just a colour but a mix of the pigment with resin, so possibly because of the physical facet of the colour not just the visual tone. I could be wrong.

As for John Cage, I did a Google on him and found this interesting link on "4,33" I wish I could have been there for the first performance, must have been great

shhh

DadaKopf

Nevertheless, IKB was thought of by Klein as a pure colour imbued with spirituality in much the same way as it was once thought Lapis Lasuli was a special pigment.

That said, whether you're spiritual or not, to see IKB in real life is to truly experience a colour so vivid it makes you blind.

I suspect, Klein was highlighting the absurdity of patenting aesthetic experience by patenting a physical substance. He set up an irreconcilable duality. Consider the classical busts he painted with IKB.

Gordon

I know relatively little about Klein but I can't wait to see his colour in real life, I only have a picture in a book